What to Do with Fabrics that Have a Little Bit of Gold in Them

   A friend who is a quilt shop owner had several fabrics that no one would buy.While each was very pretty, there was no related fabric to help tie them together. Adding to the problem, one was turquoise, one was lime, one was purple and one was orange. There just wasn't an easy way to make a traditional quilt with a purpose or a theme.

  I wound up buying a half yard or so of each color, and thinking. What came to me was that they seemed kind of Moroccan...they had an overall exotic feeling to them. After working with the fabrics, particularly the turquoise and orange, and after getting acquainted with the gold metallic embellishment on the fabrics, I started referring to this as The Goldfish quilt. Probably a poor name, as even if you do see the fish shapes, they are starting to look to me more like kissing fish than goldfish!
   Starting with a bunch of 2 1/2" strips, I sewed 36" 9-patch squares, and bordered each 9-patch block in 1 1/2" border fabric. I was trying to create a quilt that gave the overall impression of a tapestry...one that would be at home in a street stall in Marrakech or in ancient Baghdad.

A Simple 4-Patch Scrap Quilt Using Asian Fabrics

   Sometimes you love the way some fabrics look....and just don't know what to do with them! I've often purchased 1/4 yards and fat quarters of very pretty Asian fabrics...and just never put them together. I enjoy the metallic golds, the swans and birds, and the flowers, as well as the ivy, leaves and branches. At one point, I had quite a lot of Asian fabric in bits and pieces, and no idea where to go from there! Here's how this quilt from Asian fabrics came together:

   One day, I decided I wouldn't allow myself to buy any more Asian fabric unless I used at least some of what I had! And because I didn't have any better ideas, and because some of the pieces were scaps under 5" wide, I chose to do a 4-patch pattern based on 4 1/2" squares. To make use of the smaller pieces, I told myself it was OK to use some 4 1/2" mini 4-patch blocks to fill in for some of the larger 41/2" pieces. That way, I would be able to use 2 1/2" strips as well.

A Sophisticated Baby Quilt for a Boy, a Girl, Maybe Even a Dog!

   Sometimes prospective parents just don't seem to be the type to love the usual juvenile prints quilters adore putting in their baby quilts. Maybe they have a fear of clowns and circus animals, maybe their sibling's baby already has Winnie the Pooh or Care Bears all over their nursery...or maybe they just want to be different.

   Here's a simple baby quilt I made to use some sample fabric at a quilt shop I used to spend a lot of time in. It uses fabrics with a bit of gold in them. The pink is deeper, the blue a bit darker, and they are both set off with a cream fabric and a gold fabric. The exact fabric is called Pink Scapes and Turquoise Scapes, and is still available online in the blenders section at CuteFabric.com. The blue and pink squares alternate in the centers of each 8" finished block, and the cream and gold fabrics switch places in those blocks to create checkerboard 4-patch squares throughout the quilt.

   Let me know what you think of this cute little quilt, and I can post a pattern if you like. Obviously, my dog Ranger is a big fan of this crib quilt!

Some Kaffe Snowballs, and some Thimbleberries Snowballs, too!

   Sometimes you just feel like using your favorite fabrics, and then you want to see what the pattern will look like in other fabrics. For these little quilts, I started the one on the right with Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

   For the next one, I used Thimbleberries fabrics, although it is really hard to find light-colored prints in the fabric shops around here! Finally, I did one in some of the bright floral fabrics I had collected overthe years: blue pansies, orange hibiscus, purple sweet peas, blue AND purple tulips, yellow daffodils, red and pink cosmos...this quilt features a garden full of flowers!

Putting Together My "Kaffe Birds in the Air Taking Formation" Quilt

  Here are the original 42 10" squares. They are roughly lined up in 2 rows of 21....left to right from dark to light. This way, the darkest dark fabrics are combined with the darkest light fabrics. Eventually, all the fabrics are placed in groups of 6: 3 darks and 3 lights.

   You may notice that some of the fabrics have both dark and light elements in them, so it may be confusing to determine where they belong. How do you decide? The answer is simple: where do YOU feel they belong? One of the joys of doing a quilt like this is that it WILL work....and if you like the fabrics you put in the quilt, it will bring you much pleasure!

My "Kaffe Birds in the air Taking Formation" Quilt

   This is where I am at now in my quilting. I volunteered to create a pattern for 10" squares for my quilt guild. When I thought about it, I wanted to find a pattern where the would be no waste. I came upon the idea of using a Birds in the Air pattern. Since I have no layer cakes in the house, I took a rotary cutter to my Kaffe Fassett stash, and cut 42 10" squares. My stash never even felt a dent!
   Here I show how I laid out the 42 completed blocks in 5 different orientations. My carefully sorting the fabrics  from dark to light, and then grouping them, the strong diagonal lines in each block lent themselves to a variety of layouts.
   Which is your favorite? I'll tell you which I chose in my next block, along with how to make each block.